INQUIRING MINDS

Fun And Games

2010-10-21T21:35:00.001-05:00

Here is a great website with fun and games for almost every subject.

Plant and Animal Cells

2010-09-12T11:14:00.002-05:00

Here are some questions to answer as you finish your project:(Write in sentences)
1. What was the easiest part of this project? What was the hardest?

2. What did you learn about plant and animal cells that you did not know before?

3. Name one new skill you learned using the Draw program of Microsoft Word:

4. How could you use this new knowledge on another science project or another school project?

Something Fun

2009-07-26T14:25:00.000-05:00

Try it out here

11.5-Thing 11.5

2009-07-18T08:53:00.009-05:00

1. What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?
The thing I've been using the most is Facebook. Who knew? I have to laugh considering that
I had no use for Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or any of that before this assignment.

2. How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
I've been a little hamstrung by various on-campus problems with technology, but I am anxious to use what I know. I can only hope that I can use some of this when my Activ-Board is installed.
Some day, when the pendulum swings back and we aren't teaching test skills all the time, it will be nice to know about these creative resources.

3. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?
I guess I'm always surprised at all the things that are out there. Especially new things. All the time. It begins to boggle the mind.

4. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?
I think that the two most difficult things #8 and #10 should be earlier in the sequence. Maybe those should be in a face-to-face sunburn clinic. I think all of us would have gotten more out of Second Life if we had explored together. We could help each other out a bit.
Oh and SKYPE? Why not have everyone download SKYPE and arrange a meeting or two via SKYPE? My brother did a whole part of his graduate education via SKYPE. It would an interesting and practical use of it.

11.5- Thing 11

2009-07-16T10:27:00.004-05:00

This was an interesting topic. I think with the age group I teach, 6th grade, my most important lesson is to teach by example. If I credit online sources and require that they do, it teaches in an indirect way what acceptable behavior would be. If I discuss safe passwords, appropriate content, etc. it would be in the context of a specific assignment.

Here's my question: How do you get past "everyone does it" which seems to have affected even adults?

A few years ago a piece of my rubberstamp work was published in a craft magazine. Some time later a lady was selling that issue on EBay and wrote to tell me that she recognized my artwork.

I looked and not only was the cover featured (not mine), but a closeup of my work which was inside. I immediately objected. Her counter was to spew a long list of copyright law cherrypicked to defend her position. I consulted an attorney friend of mine who specialized in online copyright and intellectual property. She gave me some arguments to use, but warned me that people are particularly obnoxious on this point. So I wrote the woman again requesting that she take the photo down and quoting my friend (and making sure she knew I spoke with an attorney). This went back and forth for a while. At one point I got "Well everyone does it, it's not that big a deal". Finally she did take it down. However, several years later a similar situation happened with another woman (she copied a picture of mine "for reference" and didn't ask first). I again objected. Her parting shot was "Everyone does it and you can't do anything about it." So it's not just teenagers. Adults are also the problem.

And how do you talk to kids about this? With all that "invincible" stuff they have going on, my guess is that this is an uphill slog.

11.5- Thing Ten

2009-07-15T01:41:00.003-05:00

Whoa! There is a sharp learning curve with Second Life. After the struggle to even sign up I got in and began playing with my appearance. At some point I gave up and started to explore a little.

I encountered a lot of other people flying and walking and running around. A lot of the media online helps and searches wouldn't work for me. Not sure why.

I spent a little over an hour playing and modifying things. I did teleport somewhere: a castle.

It wasn't thrilling. Never did find the other cool things some have mentioned. I did learn to sit and stand and fly. What the beams were for is still a mystery.

Interesting. Not sure how educational. I'd need to look around a whole lot more before I wanted to use this in a classroom. I think high schoolers would love this.

Thing 10 -failure

2009-07-12T22:27:00.001-05:00

After 20 minutes of trying to get into Second Life I'm giving up for now. It keeps telling me

I'm not old enough. I promise I put in my correct birthday. So I guess I'm locked out.

Oh well.

Yet again....

2009-07-09T18:14:00.006-05:00

This is another diversion, but again an interesting one. I was noodling around at the WordPress site and found a blog called Strange Maps. Some of what's there is serious. There are discussions of historical maps and also some whimsy and amusement. Go and take a look. I think you'll like it. The map you see here is a representation of how the mean center of the population moved as the country moved west. Some of the maps aren't controversial, but a few are and there are comments worth reading as well. One was a map of Africa which showed its true size relative to other land masses. (very different from what you see on standard maps) This provoked some very heated debate.

When I read things like this it always makes me think of my very favorite episode of the West Wing, which featured "Big Block of Cheese Day". Basically this was a day when any fringe group could visit the White House and havetheir concerns heard. CJ Cregg is visited by a group of cartographers who want the official adoption of a more equitable

world map. They refer to the Peterson Inverted, but at any rate it looks something like this. This map is less Euro- and Amero- centric. It features the Southern Hemisphere at the top and Australia in the middle of the map. Think of it as Australia's revenge. You can see more things like this here.

Before this episode of the West Wing I had never considered such a thing. Amazing what we learn

from television. Anyway, check out Strange Maps when you get a chance.

Yes Vaughn, I will settle down and do my assignment.

More Fun

2009-07-09T06:56:00.004-05:00

Yes, I'm procrastinating. I'm not sure why, but I'm not wild about exploring virtual worlds. Finding all these new and interesting OTHER diversions on the internet has been fun, though.

And actually it's all the librarians fault. I wouldn't be on Facebook and getting blogs via Google Reader if it weren't for 23 Things. So there.

This new toy is courtesy of one of the participants over at Urban Sketchers. He draws urban Seattle for the Seattle Times and has a blog there as well. He drew a skyscraper and then pointed us all over to Skyscraperpage.com. You can plug in a city name and then find out all kinds of cool things about their skyscrapers. They also have a diagram by height of the city's buildings. Here's Houston.

Another Diversion

2009-07-06T15:02:00.016-05:00

I had a hard time at first grasping the idea of a meme. The more time I spend reading blogs, the more I understand. One of our other players passed this along:

Bold the titles you have read
Italicize the titles you plan to read someday.
Put an asterisk* by the titles that you LOVE.
Strike out the titles that you have no intention of reading - ever.

OK so in the font and size I chose for this blog, this won't work. So plan B is:

Titles I've read in color, titles I plan to read Italicized new font, Titles I love * and strikeout for

things I'll never read.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien*
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte*
The Harry Potter series - JK Rowling*
To Kill a Mockingbird*
The Bible
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
1984 - George Orwell
His Dark Materials series - Phillip Pullman
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott*
Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Complete works of Shakespeare
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien*
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell*
The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame*
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy*
David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis*
Emma - Jane Austen
Persuasion - Jane Austen
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis*
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne*
Animal Farm - George Orwell
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown*
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving*
The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
~~Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy~~
The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Dune - Frank Herbert
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
~~A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth~~
~~The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon~~
A Tale of Two Cities-Charles Dickens
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
~~Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie~~
Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
Dracula- Bram Stoker
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett*
Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson
Ulysses - James Joyce
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
~~Germinal - Emile Zola~~
Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
Possession - AS Byatt
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
The Color Purple - Alice Walker*
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
Charlotte’s Web - EB White*
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle*
The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery*
The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
Watership Down - Richard Adams
A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas*
Hamlet - William Shakespeare
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Playtime

2009-07-05T21:53:00.004-05:00

Vaughn posted a link to Tag Galaxy on her blog, so I had to go play a bit.

Of course I chose my favorite topic.

Not sure, as Vaughn pointed out, that this has an educational application, but it sure is fun.

What I discovered also was that the globe spins if you move the mouse. You can rotate it and look at the pictures on all the sides. Very fun.

A Slight Diversion

2009-07-05T09:46:00.006-05:00

This morning I was watching CBS Sunday morning. They did a story on The Manahatta Project and Henry Hudson. This is an exploration of what Manhattan Island was like in 1609 when Henry Hudson landed. You can read more about it HERE. They have lesson plans for schools and virtual representations of what various places looked like. So I played around a bit.
The first photo is something all the librarians will know: The New York Public Library with the famous lions out front.

The second is what the Manahatta Project believes that area looked like in 1609 with a grid of streets laid over so you can tell where you are. You can turn the streets on or off.

Cool, eh?
Go play. It's a really nice resource.

11.5-Thing 9

2009-07-04T20:31:00.003-05:00

I am new to Slideshare. I hadn't found this resource before. I notice that the medical community seems to have lots of slideshows already up. Authorstream also seems useful and has some nice additional features.
I browsed for quite a while at Slideshare. You have to wade through a lot of things under the topic "education" before you find something specific you might be looking for.
I did find this which is a nice slideshow on some uses for the IPOD in the classroom.
I think I'll be going back and taking a closer look at both these sites.
I think uploading Powerpoints to one of these sites would be a good way to have seamless presentations of work by students without loading a lot of Powerpoints onto one computer. If you find slideshows that are appropriate, students could do independent work based on one of these slideshows. I think this is where my concern about finding what I was looking for comes in. You would have to provide specific links. "Education" can mean education of doctors, inservices for business communities, etc.
This is where direction from the teacher blog would be essential.

11.5-Thing 8

2009-07-03T21:25:00.005-05:00

I'm crossing my fingers that this embeds properly. I used JING. I tried to do something that
I could use right away in class. This might need some refinement, but it was good practice.
Ok after much struggle getting it to embed I see that it also doesn't show my whole screen capture on the blog,
so if you want a really good look at what I did, go here.

11.5-Thing Six MORE

2009-06-30T15:25:00.004-05:00

This is about BRUSHES and some of the things that can be done with it.

Also check here.

11.5-Thing 7

2009-06-28T18:27:00.007-05:00

I found this on NOVA. It won't let me embed, but it will let me link. We always touch on the Ancient Greeks and the beginnings of democracy. So this would be useful. My only complaints is that it plays all 52 minutes here I believe and you can't take out a segment like you can on US Streaming. I also found episodes of the History Detectives on PBS Video here. Again, you can't lift out one short segment. A shame I think. It means you have to know exactly where to stop and start whatever you play.
Then there's this. It won a contest sponsored by the state department called "My Culture, Your Culture"

11.5-Thing Six

2009-06-24T23:15:00.007-05:00

I've only had my Touch a few months and I'm still learning about all the things I can do with it.
I have some of the Google tools on mine. I could see the fast facts app. being great in a Social Studies classroom.
I also found this.
These language guides have podcasts like this one at the ITunes Store Imagine studying France and having a cool language lesson!
And they have about 20 different languages.
As for a group in the library, if you had a WIKI app. you could have a whole group of students researching a topic and editing the WIKI from their IPODs right there. You could have everyone listen to a podcast. (every morning I hear some little thing on NPR that I would love to share with my students) Then they could all post comments to a teacher blog, a Ning created for the unit or for the class... lots of possibilities.
I did notice that many of the coolest apps are for Math or Language arts. I wish there were more games with a Social Studies focus. The research tools are great, just would love some fun stuff too. I also have to note that the free books tend to be the classics and older books. All the really current stuff (and many of the nicest apps. cost $$$. I loved the note on one of the sites from a kids who said "I'd hate to have to type notes on this thing" I agree.
I think that this is just the first generation of these devices. They will figure out ways to make these customizable for business or for education or home use.

11.5-Thing Four, Some Thoughts

2009-06-24T11:54:00.003-05:00

So by the time I edited, cropped, saved and took my still photos into IMOVIE most of yesterday afternoon was finished.
I think having a movie camera would have made it easier. I ended up applying the Ken Burns effect to the photos to make it more like a movie. That can make your work a little seasick after awhile so I tried to be minimal with the bells and whistles. I don't think this would be impossible for middle school students, but it would be a challenge. It would probably involve a class or group effort rather than individuals and some time applied outside of class.
The biggest timewaster for me was remembering where the free audio clips are online. Vaughn came to my rescue. Finding something appropriate was a challenge. Again, I think of projects I've done where students eat up class time fiddling with fonts and colors and applying actions to Powerpoints. You would have to put some real brakes on all that to get kids to complete a small film project. I finally embedded by video last night at 9 or 10. So, while this is worthwhile, it is not something I would do a lot in the classroom. (at least with middle schoolers) It is totally doable with older students.

11.5-Thing Four

2009-06-23T22:10:00.002-05:00

Once I decided on a topic, this wasn't too hard.

11.5-Thing Five

2009-06-22T21:40:00.003-05:00

I'm setting aside Four temporarily while I think about something worthwhile to upload.

So, Microblogging. I have to confess to being a bit of an old-timer when it comes to Facebook and Twitter. I kept hearing all the MySpace stories and just didn't like the idea of all that exposure out there in the wild west. I do think that Twitter is great for updating news. Too bad we can't come up with some internal "Twitter" in the district to replace endless emails, bulletins etc.

I find individual Tweets by most people to be truly banal, but that's just me. I'm open to any use for this someone can show me. I did read about librarians updating books available and other things to keep students interested and coming to the library. That's a really cool use for this.

OK so I'm looking tonight at Facebook. I decided to at least join THIS. Looking for friends is a real pain. I know there's got to be an easier way. And now that I'm on, I'm not sure what I'll do with it. I'm going to look at everyone else's blog and try to figure out what they think this could be used for in the classroom. I'm stumped.

11.5-Thing Three

2009-06-17T15:40:00.006-05:00

I have delayed loading SKYPE onto my home computer and haven't put it at all on the school computer yet. My neighbor across the hall used hers to interview for overseas jobs this spring and found it to be very easy.

I could see having a conversation with another class, possibly one overseas. I think I would want to establish a relationship first. Maybe exchange drawings, notes, questions first via mail. That might help the kids not to be so tongue-tied and also to focus their questions if we did a live interaction.

I sure do wish we could use live online conferencing for some of the endless district meetings.

Maybe have vidcasts everyone could watch and then live questions and answers.

Still thinking about how often I might use SKYPE in the classroom with kids though.

The guy from the Virtual Staff Room spent a lot of time ranting about school tech people who filter out everything. Of course, he teaches in a private school. He did pose some thoughtful questions about all the things we a filtering out.

The best use of SKYPE, in my opinion, is for the librarian who wants to do live author interviews. This is fabulous for the students. It wouldn't have to be an author. It could be any public figure willing to make the time to talk to students about their job, an issue they were studying, most anything.

11.5-Thing Two Part three

2009-06-13T22:04:00.004-05:00

Animoto is fun, but I found that it is somewhat limited. I got the one year free account and honestly didn't use it as much as I thought I would. Again, with the technology glitches this year at my school, my goal of having the kids use it just didn't happen. Maybe that would have excited me a lot more.

Voki is fun once. I made an avatar for my VoiceThread account. It's a cool toy, but probably limited for the classroom.

And Bookr. I love this. I found a cool one in the archives. Check out LegoWars. Very clever. There were some nice projects done by elementary school children. This could be great and very simple instead of Powerpoint or PhotoStory. I think students, especially those not well-versed in some technology or with limited English, would love this.

11.5- Thing Two-Part Two

2009-06-13T21:27:00.005-05:00

Glogster didn't impress me much. It wasn't very intuitive to use and a lot of the features at Big Huge Labs are better. However, if you've done a lot of the things at Big Huge Labs, this might be fun to play with.

I had a great time with VoiceThread. I registered for a free account and uploaded some sketches I've been doing. You can look and comment here. All the drawings are mine. I made a promise to myself to draw SOMETHING every day beginning in November. I was doing great on my promise until the annual madness of May in public school hit. Sigh.....

Oh, How to use VoiceThread. I know we are allowed to use so many minutes of video in the public domain without fear of copyright violation. You know how when you are watching video with the kids things go by so fast? You want to pause and point things out they might enjoy or learn from. So you upload a snippet of something. Maybe even something from US Streaming. and put in your voice commentary and use it on your new ActivBoard. (which we are supposed to have in the fall) Or better yet, give every kid a still photo and have THEM make a comment or observation. This has lots of possibilities.

11.5-Thing Two Part One

2009-06-13T21:25:00.004-05:00

I like Wordle best. I found that the links found by Wordsift weren't very discriminating. I would be very careful about turning young students loose with that. I liked the idea of mindmapping the words, but their version of it is a bit arcane. With Wordle, I think the exposure to vocabulary in a playful and creative way would be great for my students.

11.5-Thing One

2009-06-10T20:55:00.005-05:00

I love the idea of what is presented in this video and either the classroom teacher or the librarian in this role. HOWEVER, this is a very idealized version of "the student". This student has an amazing amount of intrinsic motivation. Mine do not. Now I do think this is a goal to aspire to. We could start this in baby steps and wean our students off the teacher as sage if the subject matter is interesting enough to give our students this little nudge. I thought for a long time that this was only a matter of the students I teach. Sadly, it is not. My 14-year-old nephew, while very well-read, curious and intelligent is a slacker if you are not on his tail to complete tasks. I have gotten to spend more time around him in the last six months and I see this as a generational thing, I'm afraid. Just like group learning, learning centers and other good ideas of the past, this sounds great in theory. I think it will take some work to train students to do this and closer monitoring than this video suggests.

COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD

2008-11-19T11:24:00.001-06:00

H ere is where you can go to find links for research on the countries of the world.
http://travelerwiki.pbwiki.com/

About the Twenty-three Things

2008-07-29T23:29:00.003-05:00

Several people have emailed to ask me about the graphic in the previous post. This is a first day cover created for the Seuss stamp. You mail off an uncanceled "envy" to the city sponsoring a new stamp and they put a special cancellation on it and send it back to you. I drew the Seuss characters myself using references from a couple of his books. So for THIS project I took it into PhotoShop and erased my address, added the speech bubble and filled in the poem.

The Twenty -Three Things

2008-07-26T16:09:00.003-05:00

Thing 23-Why is that woman grinning at me? or Another happy teacher finishes her assignments...

2008-07-26T12:56:00.005-05:00

Well life and vacation got in the way of my progress at times, but it was all worth it.

My favorite discoveries: I loved Big Huge Labs, I really did enjoy keeping a blog and adding posts regularly. That surprised me a bit.

How has this assisted my lifelong learning goals: Well I certainly had to be patient for Things 20 and 21. I had to be persistent to get certain things to work. I made myself stick to a rough timeline to complete the whole course by our deadline.

Take-aways or unexpected outcomes: I didn't expect to enjoy blogging so much. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy most of the tasks were.

Improvements: I think a couple of the tasks duplicated previous learning a bit. Maybe they could be put together or sequentially. I wasn't totally aware of the discussion going on in the Sandbox until several weeks into the tasks. I know it was posted early on. Maybe posting to the Sandbox needs to be a regular part of the assignment.

Another discovery program: I would be delighted to so another course like this one. I had a great time. I just discovered SKYPE. I haven't installed or used it yet. I kinda wonder how this could be used in schools.

Describe my experience in one word or sentence: Twenty-three things will blow your mind. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in technology in the schools.

Posting to other blogs: I have been and will continue to do so....

This was great!

Thing 22

2008-07-26T12:35:00.003-05:00

I went to the main Ning site and found several more interesting Nings that people in our group might like:
This one is specifically for people working with Web 2.0 applications. There were some places referred to there that I hadn't found yet in our class. This other one is more general. There are ideas and support here.

I think Nings would be a good place for teachers within a school to post support and suggestions for each other. It would be a great way to post instructions for someone struggling with a technology issue. I noticed lots of individual school Nings when I did a general search under "middle schools". It will be interesting to go back and see how these schools are using the Nings.

A lot of them are restricted (thankfully) and some of the ones that aren't have the usual snarky middle school student posts. I think the forum would also be a good way to open up a dialogue with parents.

Thing 21 Podcasting

2008-07-26T11:06:00.004-05:00

OK I think this should link to my podcast.

Thing 20-Teacher Tube

2008-07-26T10:44:00.005-05:00

Lots to sift through on this site. Some is really good, some not so good. I did find some really interesting videos made by classroom teachers.This was, I think, professionally made, but it is very good.

A thought....

2008-07-19T14:43:00.005-05:00

One of the wonderful things I did while on vacation was a trip to the Tacoma Art Museum. I discovered that they were exhibiting the St. John's Bible. For those of you not in the know, the Bible was commissioned by the Benedictine monks of St. John's abbey and university in Minnesota. It is the first such commission of an illuminated Bible since the Middle Ages. I am not an overtly religious person, but consider myself very spiritual and an art lover, so I was anxious to see this. It is amazing. Beyond amazing. You can hear about it here. You can learn more about it here. So I got to thinking.....it is coming to Mobile, Alabama in the fall and will be there through April.

Wouldn't it be cool to organize a trip? A roadtrip inservice complete with a guided tour of the exhibit. Maybe a joint venture of the art department, social studies department and library services. What do you think Barry? Vaughan?

Back from vacation

2008-07-18T23:08:00.002-05:00

I left the last three assignments for my return from Washington. Ten days in the nice cool weather where everything grows in the garden. Gardener's paradise. So I will be finishing up my assignments in the next two weeks. In the meantime, here is a Madrone tree I saw in Victoria, BC in front of the Empress Hotel. These trees are very unique and striking.

The nicest part was that I thought about NOTHING to do with work or responsibility or anything but vacation for 10 whole days. (although I must admit I missed my cats)

Tweener

2008-06-28T09:47:00.003-05:00

This 2.0 stuff is taking over my life. This is how the rabbit hole quality of all these web places works....You are minding your own business checking out your Google homepage..."oh look there is a new blog search alert" (Do you remember creating one of those alerts? Yeah, back around lesson 3,4, maybe 5) I created a search alert for blogs on crafts. This blog alert happens to be for an interesting craft topic. I'm crafty. So I click on it and it leads me to a blog written by a jewelry-maker in Austin. THAT leads me to a collective blog by a group of jewelry-makers. One of them refers to a clever video she saw and provides a link. And so, down the rabbit hole I go until I find myself at MindBites. This is like YouTube, but they seem to have a focus on instructional vidcasts. "How to Hem Your Jeans", "How to Make Shrinky Dinks", "How to Teach Your Baby to Sign" and "How to Make a Mind Bite". I mention this because as I look ahead I see that we are supposed to make a podcast or vidcast coming up soon. This is the only lesson potentially stressing me out. Just haven't done that before and don't own some of what I need to do it. The hints in the MindBites "how to" are useful. Oh, and I must mention that it is now over an hour later than when this adventure began. Alice needs to climb back out of the rabbit hole and get some things accomplished. Later...

Thing 19

2008-06-27T09:37:00.004-05:00

Well the coaches were certainly right about places that either A) want you to sign in (can we say endless sponsor spam?) or B) want you to pay. I did sign up for .docstoc. When you browse under education there are some good templates that will be useful in the classroom. I downloaded a writing evaluation form. It may not be big news to our Language Arts teachers, but it will help me build rubrics from evaluating my student writing in Social Studies.

The other educational sites seemed to be linked to foreign language education.

As for the other sites....well a lot were interesting, but not particularly useful in the classroom.

The best ones are the ones we have already explored: Del.icio.us, Wikispaces, Flickr,Google maps and Google Earth and the book places like Shelfari and Library Thing.

The problem with Yahoo answers is that it is a forum. You get the benefit of lots of people sitting at the computer with too much time on their hands giving their considered and not very expert opinion. No thanks.

I can see some of these places used as a tool in a library, well......maybe. Some of them would be a stretch and I can imagine that a lot of them are blocked by our firewall.

Thing Eighteen- Google Docs

2008-06-25T11:40:00.002-05:00

I opted not to download Open Office. It looks really useful, but I think at this point I would get more out of Google Docs. I already have two office programs on the MAC. Also OSX Leopard was NOT mentioned in the specs. My experience has been that unless you see that, there will be problems. BTW Anyone know of a good, downloadable vector drawing program that will work on MAC? MACs don't come with Claris anymore and this one didn't come with a good graphics program since they assume you will get Photoshop. I need a really simple vector program.

Anyway....Google Docs... I could see this being a great tool for students doing research, collaborating on a project, sharing pictures or graphics or writing and editing each other's work. Of course the caveat would be the same as it always is with my students. They MUST understand the SAVE, EDIT and SHARE process. Documents aren't going to be any less lost if they are lost online rather than on a hard drive somewhere. The advantage over Word or any of the Office Suite would be that you don't have to worry about versions. This version of Word or that version of Powerpoint depending on where you are in the school and how old the computer is. The sharing is very simple. It eliminates the SAVETO step for the students. (which can confuse them)

I will need to play with Google Docs more to see what all it can do for ME. I looked at a few of the videos and they were mostly of the introductory variety. The Vince Campi ones were good. The others were less so except for Common Craft. That guy is just plain clever.

Thing 16 revisited

2008-06-24T17:18:00.006-05:00

Lots of good ideas again for WIKIS. One person emailed me that their school orders lunch with WIKIS. I could see lots of those little email and paper and pencil tasks being replaced by a school WIKI. Great idea.

Oh and our librarian posted the link to our school Del.icio.us bookmarks. I added it to my favorite places over on the right side.

On another note, my first Tiger Lily bloomed this weekend. Tiger Lily was the cat whose eyes you see at the top of the blog. I planted Tiger Lily plants this year in honor of her and they are blooming now.

Thing Seventeen-Rollyo

2008-06-19T19:48:00.002-05:00

I like Rollyo. It is again another place you are supposed to join to get the full benefits. I ran into a few technical glitches because it didn't like Safari. However I did create a reference search and looked for information on Ancient Greece. (one of our topics in Social Studies) The first results were heavily Wikipedia, Britannica and Ask.com. Maybe it was the items I included for search possibilities. When I clicked on "expand to the web" at the bottom of the page I found a really nice site here. My only complaint is that this site is full of popups that for some reason even my popup blocker won't catch.

This would be a great way to filter searches for young kids. If you specify kid-friendly sites in some way you could feel comfortable with a group of kids searching.

Thing 16-More

2008-06-18T22:18:00.002-05:00

Oh wow! Corner Spot is through with all 23 already. Yikes. But she had a brilliant idea: WIKI faculty meeting: "faculty meeting by WIKI. I can just visualize it now, teachers please sign in sometime today. Agenda will be posted and please post comments, ideas or changes."

Now there's a way to make technology work!

Thing 16

2008-06-18T22:07:00.003-05:00

I love the idea of WIKIS. I know several people have raised the issue of access over in the Sandbox. I have to agree. I will have some freedom when I get the promised student computers in my classroom. However, the classroom management involved with this will be a juggling act of small group instruction between technology, other assignments, putting out fires (as in solving problems) and keeping students on task. I can see this as a real challenge. As much as you TRAIN students to do group work, follow the class rules, stay on task, be responsible, it will all boil down to the dynamic of each class and the individuals in the class. I certainly could see a WIKI set up with an assignment and a link to a forum where the student reacts, briefly. How all of this would actually work timewise remains to be seen.

I like the ideas at CoolCat here.

Thing 15

2008-06-15T23:26:00.002-05:00

Funny, when I first signed up for this class I thought someone would tell me what this 2.0 stuff meant. Then, when no one did I wondered what I had missed. Did I miss a post somewhere? Was this something all the librarians already knew about? So I had already looked some of it up on Wikipedia before I got to this assignment.

The video is provocative. I'm not sure I believe that because students choose to text message or Facebook in college classes that justifies throwing all lectures out the window. I also think that if all the interactions are online those same 18% of professors will still never have bothered to get to know their students. College classes are just too damn big and impersonal. Going online won't remedy that. I think good instruction can be a blend of both styles...maybe it should be.

And what works for college students or even high school students isn't always appropriate for the younger students.

The multipart article on Library 2.0 was interesting. Again, the first gentleman seems to find print books irrelevant. And, again, just because students won't read books doesn't mean we throw out a collection of print media. But the idea of expanding the definition of a library is valid. It is a natural extension of the reference librarian. The technology is seductive. This can be for the good or not. I think the real question is not Are we prepared to help our students in the environment in which they are comfortable? but rather Are we prepared to help our students make productive and quality use of their online time? The argument that has always been applied to long hours of television viewing is just as valid with computer time and our students. If they are excellent users of the new Library 2.0, but they can't relate in face-to-face relationships with peers and adults then we have failed.

Thing 12 -Part 3

2008-06-15T22:16:00.002-05:00

Ok I have commented on at least 5 other blogs in our group and have responded to comments on my blog... Interesting to see everyone's thoughts on the assignments.

Someone said something about commenting or receiving comments from people you don't know. I felt a little odd about this when I first got into the blogosphere. I lurked for a long time. Then I found a blog where I actually knew the blogger and another where I felt comfortable posting questions. After a while a dialogue starts. And I must admit it helps that I was already a member of some Yahoo groups which end up being like a forum. Remember these are all teachers. You are not exactly loose out there on the wild and wooly web.

Tweener

2008-06-14T21:55:00.004-05:00

OK...You have to be a cat fan, I suppose, to appreciate ICanHasCheezburger. The whole LOLCATS language and silly cats pictures aren't for everyone. But you have to admit this is funny.

more cat pictures

Thing 14

2008-06-13T20:59:00.003-05:00

Technorati has either changed its graphic interface again or appears differently in MAC. All the wonderful links shown in the little video by Liz were NOT anywhere to be found on my computer. After stumbling around for awhile I finally found some of what I was supposed to do.

If I searched for Library Learning 2.0 in posts or the directory I got more or less the same result. Some differences, but mostly the same blogs. Tags gave me mostly names of blogs that seemed to be blogs by librarians.

I think the tag cloud widget for your blog would be cool. Sometimes you want to go back and reread a post and it takes forever to go through the directory. Also the blogger search engine doesn't always work really well.

I like tagging in Del.icio.us and Technorati. It serves a purpose and if you choose your tags carefully you can save time finding what you need. I have had the tags at Amazon inflicted on me in their "recommendations" section. If I buy ONE book on a topic I get recommendations on that same topic until I go remove it. That is a hassle and very annoying. An example of BAD tagging.

I decided it was worth it to join Technorati. I put a couple of my favorite blogs on there and did some tags. We'll see how much I use this at home.

I think educational blogs at school are fine. I would be a little concerned about turning students loose on Technorati.

Thing 13

2008-06-12T22:16:00.002-05:00

I was already somewhat familiar with Del.icio.us . At one time we had a group account for school bookmarks, but now I've forgotten how to get there. Any Landrum people out there who can remember the name? Of the three, Del.icio.us seems really well designed. Magnolia was also well designed. Furl was the least intuitive. I did like that both Magnolia and Furl allowed you to save actual text. Nothing is more annoying than finding a news article or page location and linking to it, then discovering that the content has changed. Is this available at Del. icio.us? I didn't see it.

I also discovered that the search engine at Magnolia isn't quite as good as the one at Del.icio.us. I tried some search terms on both to see what they would turn up. Twice Magnolia turned up NO results.

I think the best use for this in the classroom would be for research on projects, frequently used sites etc. saved for group access. Also when you are teaching student about attribution it is helpful if they have an easy place to return to for the information they need.

In between

2008-06-12T21:56:00.004-05:00

I'm still working on Thing 13. Tonight while noodling around in Magnolia I found THIS.

And, of course, tried out my favorite subject. This would be a great tool for language arts teachers, but I think I could use it in social studies as well. Well, it's fun too.

Thing 12- Part Two

2008-06-12T20:06:00.003-05:00

My comments on other blogs.... I have two blogs I read almost every day. I have commented and do comment regularly. One is a person I have actually met. She is an artist and writer. Her blog is very entertaining and provocative. She writes about art and creativity as well as personal observations. I will include the link HERE. However, I must warn you that if you are very traditional or conservative, the things she says may make your head explode. OK, you've been warned. Sometimes she's even too much for me. (and I have been accused of being an old hippie) She is talented and funny and makes me smile.

The second blog is a gardening blog. This woman designs gardens. Not just landscapes, but beautiful gardens that replace lawns and are based on using native plants and xeriscaping. Her blog has won awards. Her photography is outstanding. I most often comment to ask questions.

The link to her blog is here. So those are my two blogs of interest. These ladies are pretty prolific bloggers. Both respond regularly to comments. Sometimes I even get an email. I know both of those things were in the material we read for the assignment, so I'm guessing that's why these blogs are successful.

Thing12-Part One

2008-06-11T22:50:00.002-05:00

OK I'm going to refer to this in parts. I need to at least reflect on what I have read or seen tonight before I forget. Yeah, middle age is lotsa fun...

I really enjoyed the podcast at blogging 101. I'm reasonably new to listening to podcasts so I am still very attentive to what I hear. They made some great points about leaving contact information. Also at one of the other sites they referred to Darth Commentator. I have seen this person in action and it isn't pretty. The Blogging 101 ladies made the point that sooner or later this will happen to you and you have to be thick-skinned.

For educators it is a different issue. How do you set rules and enforce them when using blogging with your students? Where do you draw the line on comments? There are practical questions about tracking down and dealing with those who break the rules or use blogging as a way to intimidate or hit and run. I know these are all things teachers who use this have dealt with. In fact, one of the teachers in Spring Branch that Vaughn left links to had to shut down her blog for that reason. Ideas anyone?

Thing 11

2008-06-11T21:57:00.003-05:00

Well of course I wish I'd seen Library Thing before I found Shelfari...... but Library Thing is pretty cool. I'm not sure how much I would use the forum. Frankly joining all this stuff and having idents in so many places is just a tad creepy. Just me. If you kept the list private, though, you could just use this to keep track of what you had read.

It would be great for a way to kids to review books. I don't know what their restrictions are on membership. Sharing information about good books would be pretty nice for the students.

I think I would install the widget on a personal school blog to interest my students in good books.

Thing 10

2008-06-10T21:13:00.002-05:00

The image generators are sort of fun. I liked the ones at Big Huge Labs the first time I saw them. This time I used the comic strip generator. This gave me lots of pictures to choose from. It was pretty simple to use. It did save it in a format I had never heard of before aspx??? I just converted my to jpg thinking that it might matter in uploading it to my blog.

I could see generating cartoons with Lincoln or Washington saying something appropriate. Maybe Bart Simpson making some clever joke about something we were studying. The students would definitely enjoy this.

Thing 9

2008-06-10T19:57:00.004-05:00

This was an interesting exercise, but not without some disappointments. The how-to video on Technorati is terrible. And not useful particularly at all. Technorati itself is not bad.

Topix was visually very cluttered. Google Blog Search had mixed results. I tried the terms

"children's books". What I got was a lot of "mommy blogs" and homeschoolers. I was surprised that on the first page not one library blog or librarian's personal blog showed up. I couldn't get the Superglu link to work. I did discover site called Rocket News which was easy to use.

My favorite place was the list of award winning blogs at Edublogs. As you can see, this lead me over to Toon-Doo where I had some fun.

Thing Eight

2008-06-09T22:04:00.004-05:00

What do I like about feeds and readers? Whoa will this save me time. I had a yahoo feed which never seemed to work correctly. Again, this could have been me. But the Google Reader is awesome. I have a list of blogs I visit regularly and this will make this oh so simple.

I can already see where I could have my students read stories from news sources or bits from blogs that might be appropriate.

My public page is here. I linked to Vaughan's library blog. I was blown away by Apture. I think this is the best thing I've seen so far. I hope this Beta version works out because with a classroom blog this could be the best tool YET.

Thing Seven

2008-06-09T19:19:00.002-05:00

I have always liked Google Earth although I have experienced some frustration getting it to always do what I want it to do on my MAC at home. I set up an IGoogle page and customized it a bit. I can see really putting some cool features on it at school where it would be useful to the students.

Thing 6

2008-06-08T16:26:00.010-05:00

I like all the web toys at Big Huge Labs. I had a good time thinking of a clever line for this Mandril from the Houston Zoo. I did notice that some of the applications don't entirely work or work only at the site itself. They wouldn't work very well to make products for the students to save.

I was disappointed because the postcard maker only makes a collage right there at the site and you can't really fine tune the images you get. Of course everyone loves the trading card maker. I'm afraid that at the rate teachers will be assigning this the students will be sick of trading cards by the time they get to sixth grade. A shame since this is a perfect assignment for my Social Studies class. I can see doing little mini-reports on countries with the trading cards.

Thing 5-Flickr Commons or Ewwweee I'm in Trouble Here!

2008-06-08T14:47:00.003-05:00

Yup. I could see hours going by with no sense of time passing as I browse through Flickr Commons. The copyright things are a little confusing. Some rights. No rights. Maybe? If I hold my mouth right? yeah....

So this is a picture from MyAngelG. I like this big fat snail, but if he appeared in my garden he'd be toast!

Thing 4

2008-06-08T14:46:00.001-05:00

Just got word from the coaches that I'm registered. Yippeeee!

The Avatar-Revisited

2008-06-08T07:35:00.000-05:00

OK So I was not thrilled with the avatar and I found a picture with me in it that works better for me. Hope that's ok. The little Yahoo animated avatar is a little creepy. Maybe I watch too much Law and Order. Today I will go through everyone else's blogs to see what people are writing about. If you want to see a blog that has won awards on the web for design, writing and photography go here.

Setting Up This Blog-Thing 3

2008-06-07T19:10:00.000-05:00

Well I did it! I have my first post. The silly little avatar is there. Not crazy about that. It wasn't really too hard.

Lifelong Learning-Thing 2

2008-06-07T18:21:00.000-05:00

The idea of getting up every day and having something new to do or something new to learn is what makes living fun....makes TEACHING fun. I commented not long ago to someone in my building that people who teach enjoy the variety. We could never be content working somewhere doing the same thing over and over. I learn as much from my students as they learn from me.
What I have discovered about myself is that setting my goals is easy. Sticking to a timeline or overcoming obstacles can be hard. Some things that don't come easily to me hit my frustration point. I have to remind myself to be patient with me. Give myself the same breaks I give to the 12-year-olds. Setting up this blog has gotten me past a sticking point on blogging. I had it in my head that I needed to know everything and be "ready" before I began blogging. Diving in has made me get past that.